Cold Heart
by northernexposure
Summary: In the aftermath, Harry contemplates his actions. Harry/Ruth Angst/UST. *Spoiler Alert S8 E1* Sorry I didn't put that earlier.


Cold Heart

Summary: In the aftermath of his release, Harry contemplate's Ruth's return.

Disclaimer: Owned by the Beeb, lock, stock and barrel.

Author's note: I've re-uploaded this twice now. Really sorry, I'm severely jet-lagged and have been up since 4am. Noticed a really stupid mistake and revised accordingly. So happy Ruth is back - was totally unexpected for me. My first Spooks fic, and likely my last.

* * *

He kept seeing it in his head, over and over, every time he closed his eyes. The image of Ruth, screaming, her mouth stretched open in an agony he could have prevented, but hadn't.

How many times had he thought about seeing her again? How many times had he imagined the moment that her face, the face he knew so well and thought of so often, appeared again? Countless times, every day. But never like that. Never like that.

Harry swallowed his Balvenie, draining the glass, and refilled it while the whisky's burn was still in his throat. The clock told him it was gone three in the morning, but he had no concept of time passing. Sleep would not come, he knew that without trying. There was nothing but her face, screaming, and the fragments of a dream that had kept him going for years, broken now. By him.

His Ruth. She was here, back in the UK. Home, he'd told the team, although he had only half believed it himself. He'd also told them that when her grief had subsided, she'd realise what they had done for her. He only half believed that, too, although the half that did not believe it was reserved only for himself. She'd never forgive him. He had sat there, watching her beg, watching her in pain, and he had let her husband be murdered before her eyes.

Her husband. The word tightened a chord in his throat which Harry loosened with another mouthful of single malt. His pettiness angered him, even more so than the memory of the first thing he had asked her after years of silence. _'You got married out there?' _And then, _'Do you love him?' _

Of course she hadn't answered. What had he expected? But then, he was as aware as she was that the question he'd asked was only cover for what he was really saying. The first thing he'd said to her in three years. The surest thing he'd associated with her memory since she left him on the quay that cold, wet, winter morning. Like any good spy, his question had been code for what he couldn't say plainly. What, in fact, she hadn't let him say then. _'I love you, Ruth. It's all I think about_.' But also, _'What do you feel for me?' _Death was quite literally staring him in the face, staring _her_ in the face. And out of all the things he could have said, he chose that as his opening gambit, couched within an accusation he'd made without thinking.

He should have just stayed silent. Ruth would have read his eyes and known what he'd been thinking. She always had, even if she'd not always accepted what she'd seen there. And despite everything, despite the circumstances of her presence and the cold, deep fear that her physicality put into his soul... seeing her, sitting just feet away (real, not imagined; human, not dream) was far more a part of heaven than his life since she'd left had been.

Ruth had understood everything in the time that it had taken for them to tie her down, which was why, at her most desperate, she had used it against him. And god, how desperate she must have been, to allude so publicly to what she had avoided so completely back then._ 'If you have any feelings for me...'_

He wondered, suddenly, if she genuinely did not know. If they had turned the tables, if they had put that knife to her throat earlier, his resolve could not have held as firm. Like Mani had said, everyone breaks. It's just a question of when. When they'd streamed the footage of George and Nico, Harry was ashamed to remember relief blooming in his heart. It wasn't that their deaths would not affect him. The shock and guilt would be immutable. But what he'd told her, reminded her of, was true. One life, for thousands. That was how they got through what they did, every day. That was how they justified everything - because losing one meant saving far more, and that was the best they could hope for in a world gone mad for mass violence. The point was, he could have borne it, and not broken. But - and this was a truth painful to admit even to himself, if it had been _Ruth_... As long as it wasn't her, he could go a little longer. If they'd tortured_ her_...

If she'd known that, if she'd truly understood how deep she was in his heart, she would have told their captor the secret, surely. _'Don't kill them, that won't sway him. Threaten me instead.'_

She'd called him a cold-hearted bastard, and it was true. But everyone has their breaking point, and she was his.

"Stupid old fool," he muttered to himself, pouring yet more whisky.

"I see some habits die hard."

The voice that spoke behind him was so unexpected that it was all he could do to stop the glass crashing to the floor. He spun, drunk and off-balance, to see Ruth, standing with her hands in her coat pockets, watching him guardedly from the corner of his living room. He opened his mouth, but that was as far as reflex went.

Ruth looked away, to the drawn curtain at the window. "Funnily enough, I couldn't sleep either."

"How did you..?"

She gave him a withering glance. "Come on, Harry. Once a spy, always a spy. Your security isn't that good."

He nodded, but that was just another reflex. He was completely off-guard. "I don't..." he began, after a moment, and then, "Can I... Are you..." Harry stopped, shaking his head and pinching thumb and finger to the bridge of his nose. "Ruth. _Ruth_."

She didn't say anything, but he heard her sigh, and when Harry looked up she was watching him.

"Today I had to tell a ten-year-old boy his father's dead, Harry."

He nodded, with nothing to say.

Ruth took one hand out of her pocket and pointed at him. "Your fault."

With no other recourse, Harry nodded again. Despite her palpable anger, and despite the fact that it was directed at him, he couldn't look away. Her hair was different, he realised now, longer with a wave to it. His eyes scanned her face, carefully, etching it into his mind. Angry, but not screaming. That was an improvement.

She looked away from his scrutiny with a slight shake of her head. "I used to dream about seeing you again."

His heart jumped at her confession. "I _still_ dream about you," he countered. "Every night."

"I... replaced you with other things, Harry. Things I could have. Things that were _there_."

He swallowed the pain. "I understand."

Her anger spilled again, bubbling through her eyes. "I was _happy_, Harry. Do you understand that? I was content. I wasn't lonely, for the first time that I could remember. Do you understand_ that_?"

Harry noticed the glass in his hand again, and realised there was still whisky in it. He lifted it to his mouth and drained the lot before he looked Ruth in the eye and shook his head. "No, Ruth. I don't understand that." Her eyes sparked fire, but he spoke before she could retort. "I can't remember a time I wasn't lonely, Ruth. And the last time I was happy was years ago. Three years, in fact. Three years and six months, give or take. Any ideas when that was?"

He saw her pupils dilate to pinpricks as she flinched.

"Dinner," he told her shortly, turning his back to re-fill his glass. "With you."

Harry heard her gasp, a half-choke of anger and despair. "Oh my god. Is that why?" she asked, "Is that why, Harry? Your feelings were hurt, so you let my husband die?"

He whirled on his heel, anger surging through him. "How can you say that? You, of all people? You know why I did what I did. You _know _I didn't have a choice, Ruth. Or have you forgotten everything? About what we do? What we are, and why?" He shook his head in disbelief, "About my _character_?"

Their eyes locked, and held, and fought. And in hers he saw the anger subside, replaced by defeat and tears. Abruptly, Ruth sank into the chair behind her, and covered her face with her hands. Harry could see her shoulders shaking.

"Ruth..."

"He didn't deserve it, Harry. He was a good man. A _good_ man, and he died because of me."

Harry stepped forward, and stopped, confused by the boundaries of past and present. "No," he said, "No, Ruth, not because of you. This isn't your fault."

"I didn't tell him," she said, voice full of tears. "I never told him who I was, and I let him believe we were normal. That we were safe. I believed we were _safe_, and that's what got him killed. I didn't trust that he wouldn't leave me if he knew, so I lied, and that lie killed him."

"No," he said again, kneeling in front of her, close enough to pull her hands from her face if it had been three years ago. "No, Ruth. What killed him was politics and money and greed. And me. And _me_. Not you."

She dropped her hands and looked at him, tears streaming down her face. He wanted to put his fingers on her cheeks, to wipe them away.

"You?"

He nodded, clenching his fists where they rested on the carpet. "I'm sorry, Ruth. I'm so sorry. If I could take this away from you, I would. If I could have made it happen any other way, I would have."

Ruth stared at him, eyes boring into his so hard he wanted to look away, but didn't.

"I believe you," she said finally, voice flat and exhausted against the silence of the house.

He was too tense to be relieved, too aware of her grief to think it would make any difference to them. She shivered, with emotion and cold, and he stood up, reaching for the throw that covered the sofa and pulling it around her shoulders.

"There's one thing I keep thinking about," she said, dully, as he wrapped her.

"Don't think, Ruth. Try not to think."

"I can't help it. I keep seeing both of us in that room. I keep thinking about your expression when they first brought me in." She looked up at him, searching his face. "I saw it. Just for a second, it showed in your face. You were scared."

He crouched in front of her again, and nodded. "Yes, I was."

"Not just afraid. Terrified. I've never seen you so scared, Harry. And then, you just looked defeated." She left him space to respond, but he had nothing to say. "It wasn't for yourself, was it?"

"Ruth..."

"What if it had been me, Harry? What if they'd threatened to shoot _me_?"

He looked away, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, and closed it again, shaking his head.

"Tell me, Harry. If they'd threatened me, not my family, what then?"

He was still silent, but was now resigned. He couldn't lie to her. She'd know anyway. She already did know. She was just looking for confirmation, and he at least owed her that. Harry took a breath and looked back at her. Her eyes were wide with shock and grief and expectation, and he realised with fresh alacrity just how much he'd missed her face.

"I don't think," he began slowly, "that you have ever really understood what you mean to me, Ruth. Of course you haven't, why would you? I've never said. I just took for granted, for years, that you would always be there. That I would get up in the morning and go into work and see your face. And then it was too late. Just as it is always too late. I didn't tell you, and you were gone, and I couldn't tell you. But at least you were safe, and that was - enough. Almost." Ruth was still staring at him, and he forced himself to go on. "I love you, Ruth. I have for years. For _years_. You're - you're in me, so deep that I can't get you out. You're part of me. The best part. The only part that isn't consumed by this awful world. And when they brought you in -"

He broke off, shaking his head. "I will mourn your husband for ever, Ruth. Because he made you happy, which was the least that you deserved, and because I killed him. Because he was an innocent man that I didn't save. And Nico - just a child - if they'd murdered him, that would have killed part of me stone dead. But if they had put the gun to your head..." He shut his eyes, shook his head. "I don't think I could have weathered that. I think I would have told them anything they wanted to know. I'm sorry, Ruth. I'm sorry."

They were silent for a long time. Harry felt empty, hollowed out by his confession. Eventually, he felt Ruth shift, and he looked up at her. She was staring at the window again.

"They're going to take Nico away from me."

He frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Nico - George and I were married, but I haven't legally adopted him. I couldn't. His mother still has partial custody. And now that George is dead..."

Harry closed his eyes. "Ruth-"

"It's okay," she cut him off. "At least he'll be safe that way."

Harry put out his hand, covering hers. "I'm sure you'll be able to stay in contact with him."

She shook her head, glancing down at his touch. "Best not to. And let's face it, once he's older and realises what actually happened, he's not going to want to know me, is he?" Ruth shifted her hand, pulling it out from beneath Harry's. "Question is, what am I going to do now?"

"Well, what do you want-"

Ruth stood, taking off the blanket and placing it over the sofa's arm. Harry stood with her, slightly lost, trying not to think about the way she'd pulled her hand away from his. "There's not really much I can do, really," she said, suddenly businesslike. "So I was thinking about requesting reactivation."

Harry stared for a moment. "Okay..." he said, slowly. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Will you back me?"

"I think you should take some time first. To grieve. To readjust."

She nodded. "But then?"

Harry shrugged, helplessly. "Of course I will. But Ruth-"

"It means you'll be my boss again," she said, brusquely. "Do you think you can handle that?"

He half-laughed, an expression more of shock than amusement. "I'll find a way."

She looked at him then, in the eye, and he saw something there that made his battered heart warm, just for a moment. A reminiscence of the past, of something stunted years before it had chance to bloom.

"Harry-" Ruth began, and stopped.

"Yes?"

She shook her head. "I did miss you. So much. Even after-"

It would not have been appropriate to smile, so he nodded, gently, and watched her leave.

[END]


End file.
